Balance quality assessment as an early indicator of physical frailty in older people

Abstract

Frailty is an increasingly common geriatric condition that results in an increased risk of adverse health outcomes such as falls. The most widely-used means of detecting frailty is the Fried phenotype, which includes several objective measures such as grip strength and gait velocity. One method of screening for falls is to measure balance, which can be done by a range of techniques including the assessment of the Centre of Pressure (CoP) during a balance assessment. The Balance Quality Tester (BQT) is a device based on a commercial bathroom scale that can evaluate balance quality. The BQT provides instantaneously the position of the CoP (stabilogram) in both anteroposterior (AP) and mediolateral (ML) directions and can estimate the vertical ground reaction force. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between balance quality assessment and physical frailty. Balance quality was compared to physical frailty in 186 older subjects. Rising rate (RR) was slower and trajectory velocity (TV) was higher in subjects classified as frail for both grip strength and gait velocity (p<;0.05). Balance assessment could be used in conjunction with functional tests of grip strength and gait velocity as a means of screening for frailty.